


of memory loss and names

by miidniight



Series: Dream SMP Oneshots [10]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Blood and Injury, Character Death, Fainting, Hurt Alexis | Quackity, Hurt Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Hurt/Comfort, Karl Jacobs-centric, Little bitch, M/M, Multi, Nightmares, The InBetween - Freeform, Time Travel, ranboo is kind of just vibing man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:27:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29949291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miidniight/pseuds/miidniight
Summary: Karl didn’t know how long he ran. His only thoughts were to getaway away away.Away from the haunted stares of the people behind him.Away from black eyes that were supposed to be blue (no, no that had been James) or hair that should have been brown (Mason’s grin flashed through his mind).Away from hands that had scars from broken bottles but felt softer than anything Karl had ever felt before (away from not knowing why he knew).---Or Karl comes back home without his memory.
Relationships: Alexis | Quackity/Karl Jacobs, Alexis | Quackity/Karl Jacobs/Sapnap, Alexis | Quackity/Sapnap, Karl Jacobs/Sapnap
Series: Dream SMP Oneshots [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2018798
Comments: 14
Kudos: 177





	of memory loss and names

**Author's Note:**

> almost didn't finish this one, lol
> 
> enjoy :)

Maybe in another life Karl would be able to look at his fiances and see them, but this was not that life, and had not been for a while.

He shivered as he stumbled out of the kaleidoscopic portal behind him, mind swimming with quickly fading images of two familiar smiles painted across faces that were just slightly off for reasons he had yet to be able to pinpoint. Karl reached for them, tried to hold them close, but they slipped through his fingers, falling like sifting sands away from his grasp. He was left with nothing but the few grains of dark eyes flashing mischievously behind a curtain of black bangs and the memory of a touch far too warm to be human in his palm.

Fighting against the urge to vomit, Karl choked on a gag and made his way over to where his journals lay on a nearby table. Everything was spread out haphazardly, half documented stories left unfinished next to scattered quills and drying pots of open ink. His legs trembled beneath him as a hand shot out for something—anything—to write on. It landed on a still open book, a page only partly full, and tugged it towards him desperately. Memories of what happened were already fading (they left him quicker and quicker each time he returned), and Karl needed to record everything before there was too little left to bother. His hand shook (everything was shaking—the world was tilting on its axis, the very air was vibrating around him) as he stabbed a random quill into a random ink pot, hoping and praying that the tip wouldn’t snap as he pressed the edge into the paper beneath him.

The words spilled out from Karl’s touch faster than he could properly comprehend. His hand was guided by some unseen, unknown force, its touch eerily similar to the presence that filled the Inbetween. This story was no different than the many others he had experienced. Each and every time he had travelled thus far had been brutal with death and blood the ultimate finale.

Karl was getting tired of seeing people that looked at once both familiar and estranged to him fall to their untimely ends.

His stomach lurched as his head gave a violent spin, the writing utensil in his hand dragging down the length of what was still untouched on his parchment. Tipping backwards, Karl protested with a small whimper. He needed his body to cooperate. He needed to _finish_.

However, with a quiet, gentle denial from his mind, Karl found the arm that had swung out behind him to catch his weight collapsing, his head falling to the ground with a small thud that echoed through his skull in a dull pang of pain. A soft laugh and a warm breeze were the last things that blew through his mind before his consciousness ebbed like the dying embers of a fire.

Being unconscious, however, was somehow worse.

Karl never slept peacefully these days, and today appeared no different.

There was blood coating his hands. The metallic, tangy scent of it filled the air, flooding his senses with panic that tasted like iron. Karl trembled as he stared at the red in front of him (around him, inside him, surrounding his very being) until he caught movement in the peripheral of his vision. Whipping his head around, Karl caught sight of a figure laying in a pile of _redredredredred_ —clothes stained and skin painted. He hurried over, ignoring the way the liquid dripped down his arms in scarlet rivulets.

Kneeling down to where the person lay, Karl pushed timidly at their shoulder, refusing to acknowledge what it was he was kneeling in and what it was he was moving onto the other’s shirt. Without a sound, they rolled slightly, revealing a face that haunted him. Black scruff was scattered across their (his?) chin and equally dark eyes stared back at him, glassy and unseeing. He looked away, repulsion and horror making his stomach roll unpleasantly. Slowly, terrified as to what he would find, Karl scanned down the length of the mystery man’s body, breath stuttering in his chest upon seeing the sword buried into a childish design of fire that covered his midsection.

“Please,” Karl whispered, not sure who he was asking, or even what he was asking for. “Please.”

And suddenly there it was, wrapped around his shoulders in an embrace that should have been comforting. Karl looked up from the empty stare of the man in front of him to the glistening columns and walls of the Inbetween. The amount of color the two of them were wrapped in was wrong in the pristine palace—out of place and alienated.

_Fear not, this is not a place to provoke harm, but a place to feel at ease._

Words that at one point had provided safety and calm did nothing but set Karl on edge and decrease the amount of time between each of his breaths. As he brushed one bloodied finger down the man’s cheek and closed his eyes to give him some semblance of peace, Karl couldn’t help but feel with a sinking suspicion that he knew who this was. But, like always…

Karl couldn’t remember.

“Karl?”

Looking over his shoulder, Karl caught sight of a man decked in blue a little ways away, a beanie pulled low over his head to cover his ears. He blinked in confusion, concerned at the agony that twisted the expression across from him. Even from here, Karl could hear the tortured, ragged inhales that were being sucked into the man’s mouth.

“Karl, what did you do?”

“I-I didn’t-I just,” Karl stammered in fear, hands pulling away to raise in surrender as he turned fully from where he was kneeling to face the second person. “I found him like this, I swear I—”

_“Karl, what the fuck did you do?"_

The scream startled Karl, had him flinching back from the man and scrambling to his feet to move away. It appeared he moved just in time, because suddenly the man was sprinting towards where the body lay, falling to his knees with a crack that echoed through the white halls of the Inbetween. Despite the blood that covered the (familiar, ever so familiar) body, he pulled the head into his lap, cradling it with a care speaking of a love that sent a pang through Karl’s chest.

“Sapnap… fuck, baby, open those eyes for me, please. Please.” Karl, feeling like he was intruding, looked away at the desperate words muttered breathlessly. What the man wanted he would not be getting. “C’mon, wake up sweetheart, please. Don’t do this to me, don’t go. Oh, God.”

_I know you don’t want to lose your friends, I don’t want you to either._

Karl couldn’t help but feel like that was a lie.

* * *

Karl awoke to a warmth surrounding his body. It was under him, behind him, and running a hand through his hair as a voice murmured quietly in his ear. His head was blurry, filled with a hazy fog that made it difficult to decipher what, exactly, was being said. Instead, he let the heat soak into his bones and scare away the chill that seemed to be a permanent resident these days. Everything was soft and _hot hot hot_ to the point where Karl very nearly allowed himself to drift back into sleep’s greedily awaiting arms, but a second voice, louder but just as gentle, greeted the one that had been talking to him.

Slowly, and with a bit of difficulty, Karl pried his eyelids open, wincing at the dim lighting of the portal room as he did so. The movement seemed to catch the attention of whoever was holding him, because as he became more and more aware, utterings of his name became clearer and clearer.

A groan flitted from his lips as he turned his head into the chest of the person beneath him. His head was throbbing, and Karl could only assume it was from when he had slammed it into the ground. He shivered. Everything about Karl felt weak and vulnerable, like he was made of glass and one wrong move would shatter him into millions of tiny slivers. 

The voice must have misinterpreted his shiver, because the first coherent thing Karl processed properly was, “I think he’s cold. Karl, do you want a blanket?”

Blinking furiously, Karl zoned in to find hauntingly dark eyes staring down at him from a face framed by black bangs and stubble around the chin. Jerking away in terror, Karl jolted from the man’s arms and landed painfully on his forearms on the ground. Sapnap (that was what the other man had called him, hadn’t he?) let out a surprised noise and reached one hand towards Karl, concern etched into the furrow of his brows. Karl exhaled in horror as he scrambled, feet sliding against the hardwood floors beneath him in his haste to get up and away. Sapnap was quick to pull back and mirror the position Karl had been in his dream—kneeling on the ground with his hands up in surrender. 

“Whoa, hey, it’s just me, Karl,” Sapnap said, voice slow and quiet, as if speaking to a startled animal, “You’re okay, it’s just me and Q, yeah?”

Suddenly remembering there had been another person, Karl whipped his head to and fro, eyes settling on no other than the man who had yelled at him in his dream. He wore the exact same outfit his subconscious had conjured—they both did. Q, as Sapnap had referred to him, stood to Karl’s left, blocking the entrance with worry lining every edge of his body. As if able to sense Karl’s growing desire to run, Q moved slightly to the side, giving him more than enough room to make a break for the exit if he wanted. That, more than the way they were looking at him (soft, gentle, loving, scared), was what calmed him down just enough to stay where he stood with his back pressed against the wall.

After a few tense moments, Sapnap’s shoulders seemed to lose some of the tension they were holding. A muted dejection, as if he was trying to keep it from crossing his face, made his mouth heavy, dragging it downwards into a frown (something more, a frown wasn’t enough to express the pain Karl could feel it held). He looked at Q and shook his head.

Karl had the sudden thought that this wasn’t the first time they had found him passed out on the ground.

“Karl,” Q began, and Karl couldn’t find the nerve to look him in the eye, “Do you know who we are?”

Dread was a cold emotion and it grew like ice in the pit of Karl’s stomach. Frost spread from the inside out until he was standing so still, Karl wasn’t even sure he was breathing. “Of-of course I do!” He hoped he sounded sincere enough, but if the way Sapnap’s feet were slowly inching closer and closer to where he stood, Karl did not. “You’re Sapnap and you’re… you’re Q.”

A small, pained noise. “Karl, baby, what’s my _name?_ ”

He bolted.

It was an instinctive move, one he made without thinking. One second Karl was on the floor, tears rising and panic crashing over his head in a tidal wave, and the next he was shoving a shoulder against Q and dashing through the open doorway. Two voices and two sets of footsteps followed him out. There was a sharp right turn that nearly had Karl slipping as he took it. There was nothing on his feet but a pair of slightly too big socks, making traction little more than a foreign concept.

A dark staircase sat in front of him and he took them as fast as possible, internally cursing his past self’s decision not to wear shoes. At the top, Karl was met with the sight of an unfinished house. To his left was a window, panes set in place and dripping with rain from outside, but its opposite on the right was what Karl could only assume was an empty gap covered by a nailed down tarp. Just underneath it was a neat stack of glass, perfectly even and pressed up against the same dark wood that the entire house (save for the rafters above his head and the floor beneath his feet) seemed to be made of.

“Karl, wait!”

The desperate call snapped Karl out of the mini stupor he had fallen into, propelling his legs back into motion towards the door across from him. He tugged it open, a blast of air sending moisture flying into his face. He ignored it in favor of dashing into the stormy scene awaiting him. Karl’s socks were instantly soaked through, the grass and mud squelching between his toes with every frantic step. Running past a pond filled with what appeared to be squid, Karl crashed into a wet bush covered in small red berries and tiny thorns. They scratched at his hands and face, but luckily most of his body seemed to be covered by the multi-colored hoodie he had awoken wearing.

Karl pushed through to the other side and ran into the awaiting arms of the forest in front of him. The shouts of Sapnap and Q faded the further away he got, drowned out by the pounding of the rain above his head and the treetops that were stretching like canopies.

Karl didn’t know how long he ran. His only thoughts were to get _away away away_.

Away from the haunted stares of the people behind him.

Away from black eyes that were supposed to be blue (no, no that had been James) or hair that should have been brown (Mason’s grin flashed through his mind).

Away from hands that had scars from broken bottles but felt softer than anything Karl had ever felt before (away from not knowing why he knew).

Karl, not paying attention to where he was running, felt something catch painfully on his ankle. He fell forward, sprawling out into the wet and muddy ground and slamming his chin down so hard he felt the impact jar through his skull. Glancing down, he saw a root from a tree jutting upwards from the soil. His arms shook as he pushed himself upward, biting his lips to keep from yelping as he jostled his ankle to sit in a more comfortable position. The tree was wet but solid beneath Karl’s back as he leaned against it, one trembling hand reaching up to pull the already sopping hood of his jacket up and over his head.

The cold had already seeped into his bones and made itself a home by the time he had stopped crying and someone found him. A quiet rustle and a whisper that Karl could barely hear over the rain reached his ears. Snapping his head up from where it had been buried in his knees, Karl looked around, eyes finally catching on a figure wearing glowing netherite armor and wrapped in what appeared to be a waterproof cloak. Mismatched skin and eyes of polar opposites (black and white and green and red) stared out at him curiously and with a touch of concern.

“Karl? What are you doing out here?” The voice was deep, and so reminiscent of someone else’s that taunted Karl in his dreams.

“I-” Karl stopped. He didn’t know how to finish that sentence. “I don’t know. I-I just—”

Like a pencil through wet paper, his voice tore open. Upon hearing the crack, the other person (kid?) held out their hands placatingly, panic crossing over their features. Karl studied the brown leather gloves that stretched across their long fingers rather than making eye contact.

“It’s okay, you’re okay. I just… do you want me to get Sapnap or Quackity?”

_Quackity._

It felt so familiar.

“I don’t-I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

As if understanding, the stranger dropped their hands. Something sympathetic and pained made their jewel-toned eyes regard him softly. “It’s okay, Karl. I know.”

For whatever reason, Karl had no doubt in the world that they did.

“Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

There was a pop as time seemed to freeze for a sliver of a second. Karl blinked in confusion, turning his head behind his shoulder and scanning the nearby trees. The person was gone, leaving nothing but a few glowing, purple particles drifting to the ground in their wake. It was eerily similar to how endermen teleported, but Karl didn’t know of any endermen that spoke the language of the Overworld.

For a few, tense minutes, Karl sat and waited. He shivered in his spot and tucked his fingers (though they were closer to icicles than the actual appendages at this point) in the pits of his knees hoping to force some kind of warmth back into them. He had lost feeling in his feet long ago.

There was another pop, and Karl looked up to find three people standing in a spot not too far away where there most certainly had not been three people before. Sapnap shook his head, looking rather green around the gills before his gaze snagged upon where Karl was staring under a tree.

“Oh my God, Karl.” He rushed forward as Karl flinched back. One arm raised to protect his face from the unseen threat his brain had reacted to, only to lower and see hurt painted across Sapnap’s face in shades of gray and purple. His black hair was plastered to his forehead and there was a netherite sword strapped to his hip, but for a moment, Karl couldn’t help but think that he was the prettiest person in the world.

In his peripheral, Karl saw Q slap a hand onto the stranger’s shoulder and give a quiet, “thanks, Ranboo” before he made his way over to where Karl and Sapnap found themselves in some sort of standoff. With a nod and one final pop, Karl found himself in a similar situation from earlier: him on the ground with two people he did not know (but he did—he did he did he did) standing above.

“I know my name is Karl. I know that this is my home, but I… I don’t remember.” Karl’s voice was so quiet he saw Q and Sapnap lean forward, as if hanging onto his every word.

“Karl, _mi hermoso_ , we can talk about this when we get back to the house. You’re soaking wet and you have to be freezing—”

_“No!”_

They both startled at his shout. Karl himself was surprised.

“I don’t-I don’t know you! I don’t know why you were holding me when I woke up or-or why you call me baby or why you were the ones the other guy went to find! I don’t know why I looked at you and know that your hair is softer than it looks but couldn’t remember your name! I don’t know why my name is Karl or what the heck a _Quackity_ even is!” He finished his rant with his chest heaving, breath fogging in the chilly and silent air around them.

Somehow, even with the rain that was falling, Karl knew there were tears dripping down Q’s face as he said brokenly, “My name is Quackity. This is Sapnap. The reason Ranboo went to get us and the reason we live together is because we’re engaged, Karl. The three of us are set to be married a few months from now.”

Karl felt something in his chest snap. “What?”

“Your name is Karl,” Sapnap began, shaky but stronger than Quackity had been, “Your favorite color is purple and you paint your nails whatever color matches your outfit for the day. You like to steal my shirts and sleep in them and you smile more than anyone I’ve ever met. You hole yourself up in your library and forget to eat and forget where you put things and forget that we live together, but you’ve never forgotten _us_. We just want to take you home and make sure that you’re okay, Karl. We just want you safe.”

He held out a hand to Karl. It was shaking harder than Karl thought was possible, but it was offered and it was there.

And when Karl grabbed it, it was warm and strong and safe.

Sapnap tugged Karl’s shivering form against his chest. Karl was surprisingly pleased to find that it was warmer than he was expecting, as were the arms that gently looped around his waist. Karl pretended he didn’t hear the sniffles coming from above him as he soaked in the heat gratefully.

“Oh my God, are you not wearing any shoes?” Quackity demanded from next to them, horrified.

Sapnap pulled back to look down and discover that, sure enough, all Karl had on his feet were a pair of grass-stained and muddy socks, now closer to brown than the white they had been originally. He blanched, looking up at Karl with concern. “Jesus Christ, Karl.” A pause. “Do you trust me?”

Instantly, and without hesitation, “Yes.”

Sapnap turned around and crouched slightly. As Karl climbed onto his back and the rain began to slow to a drizzle, he couldn’t help but think that maybe everything would work out after all.

Maybe one day he wouldn’t see his fiances as people he could name but not picture (Mason and James and Jack and Drew).

Maybe one day they would just be Sapnap and Quackity (Sapnap and Quackity and Sapnap and Quackity).

Maybe one day Karl would remember.


End file.
